This is the first book that reviews both empirical and clinical applications of how couples jointly cope with stress - dyadic coping - around the globe. The Systemic-Transactional Stress Model (STM), developed by co-editor Guy Bodenmann, is used as a consistent framework so readers can better appreciate the contrasts and similarities across the fourteen cultures represented in the book. Written by scholars from the particular culture, each chapter provides a conceptual review of the dyadic coping research conducted in their specific cultures, and also provides empirical and clinical recommendations. Additional contributions include how to measure dyadic coping, so others can apply the STM model in other contexts. The latest treatment approaches for therapy and prevention are also highlighted, making this book ideal for professionals interested in expanding their cultural competence when working with couples from various backgrounds. Highlights include: -How couples in different cultures deal with stress and how values and traditions affect dyadic stress and coping. -Global applications, especially to couples in the regions highlighted in the book -- the U.S (including one chapter on Latino couples in the U.S.)., Australia, China, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Portugal, Romania, and Switzerland. -Factors encountered in examining dyadic coping using the STM Model including measurement and assessment issues. -Suggestions for making treatment, prevention, and intervention programs for couples more effective. Ideal for relationship researchers, psychologists, mental health counselors, social workers, and advanced students who work with couples dealing with stress. This book is also appropriate for advanced courses on interpersonal processes, close relationships, stress and coping, multicultural issues in marriage and family therapy or counseling, or family systems, taught in a variety of social science disciplines.

As a researcher whose work focuses largely on the causes and conse quences of unwanted pregnancy, I may appear to be an unlikely candidate to write a foreword to a book on infertility. Yet, many of the themes that emerge in the study of unwanted pregnancy are also apparent in the study of infertility. Moreover, this volume is an important contribution to the literature on fertility, women's health issues, and health psychology in general, all topics with which I have been closely involved over the past two decades. Neither pregnancy nor its absence is inherently desirable: The occurrence of a pregnancy can be met with joy or despair, and its absence can be a cause of relief or anguish. Whether or not these states are wanted, the conscious and unconscious meanings attached to pregnancy and in fertility, the responses of others, the perceived implications of these states, and one's expectations for the future all are critical factors in determining an individual's response. In addition, both unwanted pregnancy and failure to conceive can be socially stigmatized, evoking both overt and subtle social disapproval. Fur ther, they involve not only the woman, but her partner, and potentially the extended family. Finally, both of these reproductive issues have been poorly researched. Because both are emotionally charged and socially stigmatized events, they are difficult to study. Much of the early literature relied on anecdotal or case reports.

The study of psychotherapy has often been limited to the ways in which cognitive and behavioral processes promote personal change. Introducing a ground breaking perspective, Greenberg and Safran's compelling new work argues that the presently-felt experience of emotional material in therapy forms a vital underpinning in the generation of change. By including emotion as a psychotherapeutic catalyst, the book offers a more complete and encompassing approach to the process of psychotherapy than has ever before been available. EMOTION IN PSYCHOTHERAPY draws from the literature of both clinical and experimental psychology to provide a critical review of theory and research on the role of emotion in the process of change. Providing a general theoretical framework for understanding the impact of affect in therapy, this unique volume describes specific change events in which emotions enhance the achievement of therapeutic goals. Case examples and extensive transcripts vividly portray a variety of affective modes--such as completing emotional expression, accessing previously unacknowledged feelings, and restructuring emotions--and illustrate in clear, practical terms how certain processes apply to particular patient problems. Moving beyond the standard approaches to therapy, this volume offers an integrated approach that carefully consider's the client's state in the session that must be amenable to intervention as well as any given intervention and its resulting changes. Its attention to both the theoretical and practical considerations of implementing a balanced psychotherapeutic approach--combining behavioral, cognitive, and affective modes--makes this an invaluable volume for practitioners and researchers of all orientations. The book will be of particular interest to clinicians seeking integrative approaches to psychotherapy, and to academic psychologists concerned with expanding the paradigm of cognitive psychology.

The affective connotations of environmental stimuli are evaluated spontaneously and with minimal cognitive processing. The activated evaluations influence subsequent emotional and cognitive processes. Featuring original contributions from leading researchers active in this area, this book reviews and integrates the most recent research and theories on this exciting new topic. Many fundamental issues regarding the nature of and relationship between evaluations, cognition, and emotion are covered. The chapters explore the mechanisms and boundary conditions of automatic evaluative processes, the determinants of valence, indirect measures of individual differences in the evaluation of social stimuli, and the relationship between evaluations and mood, as well as emotion and behavior. Offering a highly integrated and comprehensive coverage of the field, this book is suitable as a core textbook in advanced courses dealing with the role of evaluations in cognition and emotion.
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